


idiot

by astratic



Series: the emotional vulnerability zone [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: But Mostly Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Kinda, Post-Canon, overlaps with some of the montagey stuff in ep 69, pre-wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 00:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13752885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astratic/pseuds/astratic
Summary: "I had already lost you. You're all I had. All I've ever had. Everybody else? They were extra. I care about them, but I could—I could get by. You have always been all I needed. And you left.""Taako—""She took you from me again. After you'd already gone, she obliterated everything you'd left in me. I—I was so lost. For ten years I was in a fog. Something was always missing—everything was missing! And I didn't even know."





	idiot

You notice he's withdrawn. He won't tell you why, but of course you notice. You always notice. 

He's cold to Lucretia; he hasn't forgiven her, and you can tell how it hurts her, deeply, but the stony facade of Madam Director shows barely a crack. Her practiced composure crashes with Taako's careful apathy and creates a tension that drives others from rooms.

You decide to crack out the big guns.

"Taako?" You knock gently on his door.

"I don't want whatever the fuck you're selling."

You crack the door and stick your head in, "Can I come in?"

He looks up through a cloud of hair and snorts, "Why bother with the door; I know you can go through walls."

You smile phantasmally as you enter. It's less of a facial expression and more of a slight shift in aura when you're in this form.

Taako sniffs curiously, then again as his gaze zeroes in on the plate you're carrying.

"Cinnamon?" Sniff sniff sniff, "And orange? You're worried about me. Lup, I've told you I'm fine. I've just got…" he he blinks twice and then coughs dispassionately, "a cold."

You and he have always had a language of food. You can read each other's minds through biscuits and pies, have nuanced conversations through spices and herbs. You sit on the bed beside him as he curls into himself and begrudgingly takes one of the lovingly crafted cinnamon rolls you brought, licking orange icing delicately off a finger. 

"Sweetened condensed milk," he says dreamily. "Richer, less tangy that way. A bit of lemon, giving the orange that extra kick." He takes a bite and savors it a moment, eyes closed, "Flaky, almost a croissant dough, but denser. A hint of molasses; is that brown sugar?"

You watch him silently and deposit the plate on his bedside table as you wait. 

He sighs after a few moments, setting aside the rest of the cinnamon roll. A bad sign.

"Yeah, I'm angry at Lucretia. Fuck do you want from me?"

"She did what she thought she had to, Taako. It was a bad time for all of us."

His mouth twitches, "And I'm supposed to just let it go? Lup, you—" he stops abruptly, as if he's hit a wall of enchantment.

You extend your skeletal hand. When you were first released from the umbrastaff, your form had been slightly unstable. The inside of your accursed creation hadn't been exactly a physical space (as you hadn't intended to take up residence there), and the state in which you existed inside it was not tangible. As you reaccustomed yourself to corporeality, your ability to toggle the physicality of your lich form had gradually returned. You focus now, and the aura around your fingers shifts and solidifies. Taako twines his fingers with yours, staring squarely at the star pattern of his blanket.

"I had already lost you," it's barely more than a whisper, "You're all I had. All I've ever had. Everybody else? They were extra. I care about them, but I could—I could get by. You have always been all I needed. And you left."

He sniffs again, wetter.

"Taako—"

"I have a cold, remember?" After a pause, he shakes his head, "She took you from me again. After you'd already gone, she obliterated everything you'd left in me. I—I was so lost. For ten years I was in a fog. Something was always missing—everything was missing! And I didn't even know." 

You reach out and brush back a lock of his hair. He looks up now, meeting your gaze, and there's a fury in his eyes you don't expect; you barely catch it: and then he melts. He grabs a brush from the table and offers it to you silently.

This is an age old tradition, from when you were tiny. He slumps face down into your lap, which you think can't be comfortable, but he doesn't seem to mind. You begin working the brush through the wild mass of his hair.

"Without you, Lup…" he shifts, curls onto his side, his head still in your lap, "I'm not good. I'm not a good person. You make me good."

"Taako…"

"No, don't do it! Don't do it. Don't try to make me feel better by spouting some bullshit about being a hero. Won't work. You brought me orange cinnamon rolls; touché, but you're the only thing that's ever mattered to me, and the only reason I've ever—" he stops again.

You sigh, "What about Magnus and Merle? What about Davenport? What about Kravitz—"

"Kravitz is in love with me. Because. Because, obviously. Look at me. Poor fool."

"You don't mean that. You love him."

He rolls to look at you, and your hand stills. He looks haunted.

"Do I?" He says, and the question is genuine.

And you feel his doubt, suddenly. Taako, upon regaining his memories, upon losing you for the third time, was thrown into stormy waters with no raft, and he hasn't yet found his way home. 

"Taako, I was with you. In the umbrastaff. I was there, the whole time. I never wanted to leave your side, and I'm sorry. But you are your own man! You're Taako from TV. You're my superstar brother, the greatest transmutation wizard in the world, and the second best chef."

He almost smiles.

"You feel lost. You feel like something was taken from you, and you aren't the same. Or that you never were what you thought in the first place. But you're here. And soon, I'll be able to hold you in my real arms, with my fleshbody. It'll be okay. The fight is over now, darling. Your home is right here."

He sits up now, winding himself into a ball, and his muffled sobs break your heart, but you only resume brushing his hair as he shudders.

You work the knots out gently, methodically, as you've done many times over decades and decades. His hair is the same as yours of course—his everything is the same as yours—and you'd always preferred to keep yours shorter, as you found it easier to care for. Taako on the other hand prizes his unruly mane, stringing in beads enchanted to glow like stars and ribbons gleaming like aurora borealis, or letting Merle pin in flowers and weave in vines. You have nothing to decorate it with right now, but you carefully braid it away from his face in a crown and then sweep the rest into an elegant updo. 

He's quiet now.

"Lup, how are you okay? You were trapped in there for so long. I carried you around for almost a year—I had no idea. I forgot you existed. I was an idiot. I'm so sorry."

It's your turn to be silent.

"You wouldn't have killed all those people I did. In my stead, you wouldn't have. And if you were with me, you'd have stopped me. I think I'm broken," he turns to look at you, and that haunted expression is back. The elegant slope of his neck and his hairdo make him look like a lovely but morose painting. "I didn't care. When I learned what Lucretia had done, what she had taken from me, I didn't care. I wasn't even angry then; I just couldn't find it in me—couldn't find anything. I had nothing. And then, when we were fighting the Hunger, when I had you there again, it was almost like nothing had changed. Like that century never ended. But then it did, and we're here, and I'm still broken. And that goal, the thing we were fighting for so long, is gone. And I'm supposed to just live? I'm supposed to act like all that didn't happen? Like Lucretia didn't tear out my heart and feed it to that fucking fish?" He's shaking now; you put a hand on his shoulder but he shrugs you off. 

"I remember forgetting. I remember a chasm opening up, and I didn't know your name. Your face—it's my face. It's my fucking face. I didn't remember."

"I'm here now."

"I don't think I am."

**Author's Note:**

> i was fucked up over the inconsistent state of lich lup's corporeality, so i fixed it. youre welcome, griffin
> 
> edit: i wrote a companion piece to this around the same time but never posted it because it was part of something larger that i didn't like. i cleaned it up, and now it's part 2 of this series. i think it adds a level of needed relief to the tense ending of this one


End file.
